Over a long weekend in September we had a reunion of old friends at our family cabin in Akeley, Minnesota. The idea came about when our friend John wanted to attend his high school reunion in Duluth. So, the Akeley reunion was arranged around John’s reunion. In a few short months we all put together ideas and plans to enjoy the north woods of Minnesota and play a few tunes too.
In his younger years my husband was involved in bands in Bemidji and many of these people have remained friends. Some bandmates were high school friends in Bemidji and others he met in his various bands. It was a combination of Bemidji high school friends and bandmates from the early 70s as well as two valley girl friends from the same time period. John’s wife Sue and I have also known each other since the early 70s. She was in my sister’s grade, and they were both in band together. That is how we met, and we’ve been friends ever since. John and Sue’s daughter Paris came along too.
Below is a photo of one of those bands, Open Flow. Three from this group were at the reunion:
The weekend was labeled Bemidji Boyz Music Camp since everyone involved are musicians and this was mainly a group of Bemidji friends. Magnets were made with everyone’s names and phone numbers and apparently John got a deal if he ordered a bunch of these magnets. This became a joke by the end of the weekend with nearly everyone saying “Hey, do you need a magnet?” We left a couple on the fridges at the cabin. I have a photo of one of the magnets but I’m not posting it here for the world to see all our phone numbers. And I don’t know how to block all of the information out of the photo.
John, Sue and Paris arrived in Minneapolis Wednesday evening and had plans to dine with other friends that night and then headed north Thursday. I texted them from the highway on Thursday and they were about 15 minutes behind us en route to Akeley. We had planned to stop at Morey’s (which just became Rich’s) in Motley to get some fish, so we just waited a few minutes until they arrived and Paris took this selfie:
The list of invitees got to about 15 and the actual count was 10, but not everyone was there for the entire time. Most of us arrived at the cabin on Thursday and then departed on Sunday. One was only able to be there on Thursday. One missed his flight, so he arrived Friday, and another wasn’t able to arrive until Friday. The rest weren’t able to come for various reasons. There is talk of doing this again next summer so hopefully more will be able to come as long as we get our poop in a group and plan ahead!
The cabin sleeps up to 7 people and we have plenty of ground space for anyone that wanted to camp. A couple of the guys rented a cabin in the area, another pitched a tent at the top of the hill and the rest of us stayed in the cabin. It worked out rather well and we only had rain overnight one night.
Considering we were on the cusp of autumn in mid-September, the weather was absolutely amazing! I was keeping an eye on the weather forecast leading up to our long weekend, an exercise in futility to be sure because the forecasts were mostly wrong, lucky for us!! We were able to have a campfire, hang out and dine on the deck, as well as take the pontoon out a few times. Temps averaged in the low 70s during the day and into the 50s overnight. I brought extra blankets in case all the blankets at the cabin were used up, but we never needed those extra blankets.
I have to admit that we were a bit nervous about this get-together. We don’t usually host big parties like this and there were so many details to be arranged for the music, like music stands and power cords and drum machines and I don’t even know what else because I wasn’t too involved in all the music discussions. Dan offered a PA system and various drums and since he wasn’t able to stay, Larry returned all of Dan’s equipment on his way home. We even ordered a porta potty since the cabin only has one bathroom. It was awesome how everything worked out! Well, the porta potty got a little goofed up. We were supposed to call them when we got to the cabin and then they would deliver. Instead, one friend arrived before we did and he was there to meet the porta potty guy. Thanks Larry for handling that for us 👍
We only planned dinners for the three nights: Thursday was taco night, Friday was pizza and Saturday was brats, wild rice and my apparently famous baked beans. The three gals also went to the Super One grocery store in Walker to get food for lunches, drinks and some snacks. We all chipped in here and there and everything worked out well.
During the prep in the months beforehand Sue and I decided that we three gals would go to Itasca on Friday so that we’d get “girl time” and we left the boys to entertain themselves with their music. Sue and Paris had never been to Itasca. I had never been to Itasca at the end of summer and there were many autumn colors starting to show and was so beautiful. I love that park! And lucky for us, Douglas Lodge restaurant was open, and we had a great lunch. Here’s a gallery of photos from our day at the park, a combination of mine and Sue’s photos. Click on any photo in this gallery to see larger photos and scroll through to read comments:
There was also a lot of prep for the music that all of us participated in, some of us more than others. Sue and I had small parts playing flutes on two songs. I don’t remember all the details of that prep but there were lots of emails back and forth. The guys set everything up in the garage since that is the biggest sheltered space in case it rained. In the emails everyone was deciding which songs we should all practice. There were Jump In The Line, Yellow Bird, and Yellow Submarine in the mix.
Following is a gallery of other photos from the weekend. It’s a combination of mine, hubby’s and Sue’s photos. Click on any photo in this gallery to see larger photos and scroll through to read comments:
Dan was kind enough to combine all of our photos to create a video montage on youtube. Some photos are blurry and there is talk of creating another video without the blurry ones. When that happens I will amend this post and add it here. This video contains many of the photos shared here but there are others that I don’t have so it’s a nice addition to this post. Nice job Dan!! And thank you so much 👍
There were many stories shared and tunes played over our three-day long weekend. If any attendees reading this want to add comments, please do as it would be lovely to have others’ perspectives.
It would be fun to do this again next year. Put your thinking caps on and let’s plan it. It was great to spend time with old friends and getting to know others better. And in the end a good time was had by all!
To close, here are some photos of the gorgeous sunsets we experienced. Such a beautiful and peaceful place on 11th Crow Wing Lake.
And one last one that hubby took:
travels with toby 